/ BMC windfarms & leaving in protest

I just found out that "The BMC has announced its backing for the Mountaineering Council of Scotland’s (MCofS) wind farm manifesto which calls for a moratorium on further developments in key upland areas"

I would like to leave in protest but this seems an empty gesture unless I can demand some of my membership money back. Just wondered if anyone had done this?

Wind turbines will always be a contentious issue, many will argue that they are a fantastic way of harvesting a free and renewable energy that is abundant in the British Isles. We will all have experienced the downsides of this whist walking or climbing! This is undeniable true however what the same individuals often fail to see is the negative impact that turbines have not only on our landscape but on our wildlife and other aspects of individuals lives.

As someone who lives in an area proliferated by wind turbines I can only say that I have come to loath them. I am not anti wind and am not a NIMBY (I live less than a mile from the first wind farm in Britain and can see two other wind farms from my house which I bought after the farm was built). My objection to turbines is the indiscriminate way that they pop up over our countryside like mushrooms (only not quite as tasty) and the lack of strategy at a local and national level to control this.

Wind is a free and renewable resource but our countryside is not and it is sadly decreasing in size. The environment in which we live is at ever increasing pressures from all directions. Pressure from encroaching towns and cities, ever intensive farming in an attempt to keep up with the demands form our growing population, pollution and an increased footfall on those enjoying the wild areas of our country all take its toll, If as guardians of our landscape we do not consider the real impact of man made structures such as wind turbines and wind farms we will loose our wild areas and countryside altogether.

As an example there are plans for a new wind farm in my local area (north Cornwall). The proposed site to be located close to Davidstow on the outskirts of Camelford where two options have been proposed (this is after an already withdrawn planning application through public opposition)

Option 1: 15 larger turbines each generating 3MW providing an installed capacity of 45MW. The Guaranteed Minimum Community Trust Fund for this option would be £220,000 per annum;

Option 2: 17 smaller turbines each generating 2MW providing an installed capacity of 34MW. The Guaranteed Minimum Community Trust Fund for this option would be £90,000 per annum.

The trust fund is an amount of money that a company (or individual will give to the local community) some might call it a bride! Lets face it is a very difficult decision in times of austerity for local councils and interested parties to say no to £220,00 a year. I recently went to a renewable conference at the Delabole gia project where a Cornwall county councillor made the comment “you have to ignore those who object and get them on board by offering more money”.

A typical 500kw turbine will cost approximately £1.1million to build and will generate between £400,000-£500,000 a year. They have a working life of between 20-25 years I would argue this is why many of the companies and individuals are so keen to build wind turbines.

From where I live these wind turbines will dominate the landscape and area of outstanding natural beauty, from the perspective where I live they will appear to be the same height as Brown Willy and rough tor (the highest point in Cornwall). How this can be considered as a good idea defeats me, Cornwall has limited wild country and as such should be protected.

I know that no doubt people will write to say “well what would you rather have wind turbines or a power station” and my response would be wind turbines. But I am not convinced that this is the only choice.

If as a country we need to increase our energy supply then there are many other forms which can be considered. Why do the government and power companies not utilise all roofs in the country with solar panels. Surely if every south facing roof space and wall was utilised with PV then there would be thousands of acres of solar energy. Tidal energy which is regular and predictable (something which that wind is not) is also another form which is not utilised too full effect.

If we allow our wild areas to be the home to be the home of developments such as wind farms we will loose them forever and that’s not just for our generation but our future generations.

I am not saying that wind farms should not be built but we must have a more considered and conservative approach to them in our wild environment. I understand the pro approach to turbines but question if they are a genuine soloution.

I am glad that the BMC is taking a responsible approach to this issue and support their decision.

In reply to rockjedi12345: I'm not.. TBH i don't think organisations like the BMC should have a set opinion on mattes as contentious as this..

Especially without ballotting the members.. I know they can do the meetings but my experience is the meetings can be dominated by those with a forceful view on a subject.. and those who are against WF's have a very strong view against them, whereas those who are more 'they can be part of the answer' tend to be less vocal in support as its not such a clear cut support..

I'm also not saying you are talking rubbish at all here, but one thing I don't like about WF threads are all the quoted figures and facts.. with very few links and references...

I am not against wind power either and the largest UK windfarm is clearly visible from my house, less than 3 miles away. However, what's now all too clear here in Wales is that all the 'easy/'non-contentious' locations for wind farms have already been developed or are currently under development. Future proposed development is not only encroaching into the so-called 'wild' areas, it is well and truly within such areas.

Powys CC recently rejected planning applications for 3 huge new windfarms in such 'wild' upland peat bog areas. The recommendations were rejected because of fears about the impact on local transport, tourism, wildlife, the natural environment and noise levels. It was reported that the 3 different developers had apparently all failed to provide any meaningful or realistic impact analyses with regards to any of the above and on this basis the applications were all rejected.

The idea of wind power is excellent, but the reality is one of woeful inefficiency. When we have high pressure conditions in winter leading to a huge demand for electricity, the turbines are still due to lack of wind. When we have continuous periods of high winds, the turbines are again still in order to prevent bearing damage.

It's all too easy to be blinkered by the propaganda and the simplistic notions encouraged by developers (and government) that wind power is green and that green is good. As a BMC member, I'm extremely proud of the BMC's stance. After all, like the MCofS, the BMC's position isn't going to be one of total opposition to all wind power development. Instead it will intelligently focus on opposing developments which are totally inappropriate due to their impact within the upland areas of England and Wales.

My appologies for not attaching any links, as is usualy with my technofobic manner I am unable to find the same website I did earlier for the referance on wind turbine cost and revenue but please finad attached a couple of others I have located.

part of any planning application will invite opinions from various stakeholders such as natural England, MOD etc. i feel that as a representative of individuals it is key that the BMC do take interest in matters which affect the areas that we are privalidged to enjoy.

O I usualy am talking complete rubbish so it is a fair comment to make!

In reply to Dave Williams: Having worked on the construction of a large number of turbines I can honestly say you could have one down in a day and probably take a few weeks removing the access re seed and replant back to natural habitat...

Now....

Trysfinithin North wales and Sellafield are both credited with large scale production of pollutants and will have an evironmental legacy well past a few skips of hardcore and broken up reinforced concrete slabs.

> (In reply to Ardverikie)
>
> Wind turbines will always be a contentious issue, many will argue that they are a fantastic way of harvesting a free and renewable energy that is abundant in the British Isles. We will all have experienced the downsides of this whist walking or climbing! This is undeniable true however what the same individuals often fail to see is the negative impact that turbines have not only on our landscape but on our wildlife and other aspects of individuals lives.

What is also undeniable is climate change, and having just spent the last week in your neck of the woods you aren't immune to it either. Fortunately our stocks of carbon based fuel are fast running out, so in fifty years time it will stop getting worse. Of course, by then we'll have a few bigger problems, only one of which will be where our power will come from, and it comes down to a stark choice - nuclear or renewable. As things stand, there is no way we can meet our demands from renewables, but then they have had far less research and investment than nuclear - if only there was a military use for renewable energy ! But R & D isn't the only hidden cost of nuclear - even the most doctrinaire free-market Tory realised they couldn't privatise it due to the horrendous de-commissioning costs. Furthermore we have the true legacy of our dalliance with nuclear - think how long humans have been civilised, multiply it a thousand times and you are somewhere near the time our nuclear waste will still be lethal.

Now I'm sure you know all this, but bear it in mind next time you look at a wind farm. You see it as intrusion on the countryside and you are right, up to a point. But how many viewpoints are there where you can see wind farms and not roads, houses, and other evidence of our insatiable use of fossil fuels?

> (In reply to Dave Williams) Having worked on the construction of a large number of turbines I can honestly say you could have one down in a day and probably take a few weeks removing the access re seed and replant back to natural habitat...

>

I wish I shared your optimism! I too have worked on quite a few renewables sites - but on the Environmental Impact rather than construction aspects.

I'm afraid reinstating fragile habitats such as, for example, alpine heath or blanket bog isn't actually as simple as 're-seeding'. If it was, conservation science would be a piece of cake and we really would have nothing to worry about on that score.

Unfortunately, that fact is, once you've trashed them with engineering construction works they tend not to come back very quickly.

One of the most foolish aspects of much of the current turbine developments is the propensity to stick them on blanket bog - especially in Scotland and Wales. You can see why the developers and politicians like this - they're usually well away from main population centres and the landowners are often not unreasonably keen on the idea of large amounts of free money for 25 years in exchange for doing next to nothing.

Inconveniently, peatlands are also excellent absorbers of CO2 so actually the last thing you want to do is damage them in any way that might make them less efficient at this. (Especially if your main goal is supposedly to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere...)

And yet this is currently what is happening on a quite staggering scale from South Wales to Shetland and all stations in between - all in the name of allegedly reducing CO2 emissions.

For instance, on one of the big turbine sites just given the go ahead on some really excellent active blanket bog in Lewis the plan is simply to send the excavated peat straight to landfill - where it will happily discharge copious amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere thereby rather nullifying any theoretical 'saving' that having windmills there might or might not generate.

There's the beginnings of a wider realisation that this is a dumb idea (e.g. recent letter to Nature from some leading researchers at Aberdeen University http://tinyurl.com/9p7yhxq) but you can't help feeling that rationality and facts are regarded are optional and disposal in the currently febrile atmosphere surrounding the rush to wind power - especially in Scotland.

I think the important part of the wording is "key upland areas" and as defined in the MCoS manifesto. The BMC has all sorts of feedback mechanisms for its members: local meetings, through the website, writing or emailing the organisation direct, annual council etc. Balloting members on all such issues would be expensive and idiotic.

From my local Peak area meetings its obvious that there are very clear differences of opinion on windfarms around the national park area but I think everyone would be against putting them on the Kinder plateau.

In reply to Ardverikie: A much better option than leaving would be to mobilise other like-minded individuals and through the democratic processes by which the BMC is governed, have the BMC reverse it's policy.

In the absence of a vote on the issue by the entire BMC membership I am rather disappointed and slightly surprised that the BMC collectively has actually taken a clear stance on this issue. I think it would be much better for everyone concerned for the BMC to studiously sit on the fence on this issue and allow individual members to express their own opinions.

>
> In the absence of a vote on the issue by the entire BMC membership I am rather disappointed and slightly surprised that the BMC collectively has actually taken a clear stance on this issue. I think it would be much better for everyone concerned for the BMC to studiously sit on the fence on this issue and allow individual members to express their own opinions.

Exactly. The BMC simply does not have the expertise to deal with such a complex issue with such serious (literally life or death) ramifications for the whole non-climbing population.

> (In reply to Dave Williams) Having worked on the construction of a large number of turbines I can honestly say you could have one down in a day and probably take a few weeks removing the access re seed and replant back to natural habitat...
>
> Now....
>
> Trysfinithin North wales and Sellafield are both credited with large scale production of pollutants and will have an evironmental legacy well past a few skips of hardcore and broken up reinforced concrete slabs.

That argument always annoys me. Comparing the impact of (presumably you mean) Trawsfynydd nuclear power station with a single wind turbine (or even a handful) is daft. One can power a whole region, the other boils a few kettles. To make it sensible, you have to work out how many wind turbines provide the equivalent output of a 470MW power station over 35 years and then how much impact the decommissioning has. You might still come down on the side of the wind turbines, but at least you're not claiming that the wind turbine equivalent of a nuclear power station can be put in a few skips.

I'd hope the opposite: that the people working for the organisation can listen to the clear majority views expresed by those who bother to comment and respond proportionately and certainly not sit on the fence every time a few dissenters arise as this could block almost any initiative. If they err in any decision because the members they heard were not representative then the concerned majority membership should write and make it clear. In this case I cant see many ordinary BMC members will disagree with the well argued case of the moratorium of new developments, only of course applying to those "key upland areas" .

> (In reply to muppetfilter)
> [...]
>
> That argument always annoys me. Comparing the impact of (presumably you mean) Trawsfynydd nuclear power station with a single wind turbine (or even a handful) is daft. One can power a whole region, the other boils a few kettles. To make it sensible, you have to work out how many wind turbines provide the equivalent output of a 470MW power station over 35 years and then how much impact the decommissioning has. You might still come down on the side of the wind turbines, but at least you're not claiming that the wind turbine equivalent of a nuclear power station can be put in a few skips.

The other issue is the conflation of Sellafield with a modern nuclear power station. The issues at Sellafield stem from decommissioning a bomb factory built with 1940's technology, no money, no concept of even the idea of decommissioning and very little understanding of radiation physics, contamination spread or how radiation doses were accrued. It's a bit like criticising wind turbines because of the wood and fabric sails and the power loss caused by milling corn.

> (In reply to Andy Stephenson)
> [...]
>
> The other issue is the conflation of Sellafield with a modern nuclear power station.

I think its more that Sellafield is a byword for the overconfident, slightly secretive behaviour of the nuclear industry over decades. The story is *always* that it couldn't possibly happen here, or that it was one-off, or that new stuff is better. And then it happens again. And then it turns out industry knew of problems and hid them. A bit of honesty and openness would help a lot with public perception.

In reply to Ardverikie: The BMC has announcing its backing for the MCofS wind farm manifesto which calls for a moratorium on further developments in key upland areas is an excellent reason for joining the BMC not leaving it!

A recent report indicated that wind turbines are only 23% efficient. If it wasn't for massive government subsidies there wouldn't be any as they are just not cost effective. They don't produce any energy under low wind or excessive wind conditions but the visual blight is there permanently. Then you have to factor in the environmental cost of producing them and installing them. Doesn't make any sense.

> (In reply to Ridge)
> [...]
>
> I think its more that Sellafield is a byword for the overconfident, slightly secretive behaviour of the nuclear industry over decades. The story is *always* that it couldn't possibly happen here, or that it was one-off, or that new stuff is better. And then it happens again. And then it turns out industry knew of problems and hid them. A bit of honesty and openness would help a lot with public perception.

Ah, I get it. Because the wind turbine industry is such a well established and well understood industry that we can be certain of the impact of large wind farms and their associated infrastructure in otherwise untouched landscape. And the wind turbine industry is renowned for its openness to discussions about it's efficiency, the full ecological cost of building turbines and their associated infrastructure, and their transparent means of funding.
Well, I'm convinced.....

In reply to steelbru:
Energy from photovoltaics is considerably more expensive than from wind. I can't remember the figures, I'll try to find some, but IIRC we're talking in the region of 10 times the cost at the moment.

I'm way out, though a quick look at "renewable energy without the hot air" gives a rough figure of up to 10x it looks like most estimates have it at 3-5 times more expensive, depending a lot on details.

> So how many thousand acres of PV would we get if we stopped all windfarms and spent all the money on solar instead ( whether the money comes from govt or private ).
>
> Surely costs of PV production would reduce substantially if we went for it big style ?
>

Not sure that applies any more so than for wind, China have been pumping out the standard silicon panels leading to a big drop recently anyway. Silicon panels will always be fairly pricey. The best thing about solar is that in the long term a large amount of our energy generation will need to be from either some form of solar energy or nuclear energy or we're screwed. The others simply won't provide enough.

> How many £1000s or is it £millions is being wasted giving cash to energy companies to not operate windfarms when grid is at capacity ?

That sort of issue arises with any intermittent energy source, including solar. Energy storage will become a much bigger issue in the medium term IMO.

> If we started witha fresh shhet of paper, knowing what we know now, would we really be developing windfarms the way we are currently ?

Not a clue. Some bigger companies have already ditched UK wind due to the difficulties with planning.

> (In reply to steelbru)
> [...]
> I'm way out, though a quick look at "renewable energy without the hot air" gives a rough figure of up to 10x it looks like most estimates have it at 3-5 times more expensive, depending a lot on details.

That also makes the point IIRC that the south facing roof space would be better used for direct water heating in the Uk rather than PV although I fail to see why you can't have both.

> That sort of issue arises with any intermittent energy source, including solar. Energy storage will become a much bigger issue in the medium term IMO.
>

I don't think this becomes much of an issue until a higher percentage of generation capacity is intermittent than currently.

> (In reply to muppetfilter)
> [...]
>
> That argument always annoys me. Comparing the impact of (presumably you mean) Trawsfynydd nuclear power station with a single wind turbine (or even a handful) is daft. One can power a whole region, the other boils a few kettles. To make it sensible, you have to work out how many wind turbines provide the equivalent output of a 470MW power station over 35 years and then how much impact the decommissioning has. You might still come down on the side of the wind turbines, but at least you're not claiming that the wind turbine equivalent of a nuclear power station can be put in a few skips.

Working on a capacity factor of 80% for nuclear and 25% for onshore wind, a 470 MW nuclear station would generate 3.3 TWh per year, the equivalent of 500 3 MW wind turbines occupying around 250 square kilometres.
Yep, that would be quite a lot of skips, although much of the materials turbines are constructed from could be recycled and pose no radiation threat.

Personally, I think we need both nuclear and renewables but we need proper long term burial / storage facilities in place to deal with nuclear waste properly before expanding nuclear capacity. Economically recoverable uranium R/P ratio isn't an awful lot better than gas either, although there's plenty around available at higher extraction and processing costs. Considering the percentage of lifetime costs attributed to fuel in nuclear stations (approx 2%) even doubling the price of nuclear fuels shouldn't represent enormous increase in generation costs.

All we need to keep people happy is more of that energy source that is cheap, clean, quiet, on-demand, reliable, visually unobtrusive and doesn't impact its local environment. What are the government waiting for?

In reply to steelbru: Surely costs of PV production would reduce substantially if we went for it big style ?

As far as I'm aware it is still true that increasing PV production actually pushes up costs. When PV was a new "fringe" technology they purchased waste materials from the semiconductor fabs to produce pv panels as they required lower grade material. Demand outstripped supply of low grade material quite a while ago and they are now competing with semiconductor manufacturers for material. The more you push up volume the lower the proportion of cheap material you can use.

> (In reply to Andy Stephenson)
> [...]
>
> The other issue is the conflation of Sellafield with a modern nuclear power station. The issues at Sellafield stem from decommissioning a bomb factory built with 1940's technology, no money, no concept of even the idea of decommissioning and very little understanding of radiation physics, contamination spread or how radiation doses were accrued. It's a bit like criticising wind turbines because of the wood and fabric sails and the power loss caused by milling corn.

Probably one of the most insightful descriptions of the nuclear industry I've read this year. It has been very convienient for people to forget that generation and reprocessing was origninally about plutonium production as the country was engaged in the cold war at the time. Generation of electricity was a by prduct. Thankfully priorities have now changed. This however does not excuse the lack of action taken in addressing the degredation of these facilites during the 70s 80s and 90s and the current dithering about diposal options.

Nice to see some numbers being produced in this thread. Point of information, most power stations in the UK generate 1220 MW so each power station = about 600 Km^2 of wind farm. One other point, no one has pointed out that the turbines are all connected to each other by roads which also have an environmental impact.

I read last week that if we replaced all the nuclear power stations in Britain (which are now nearing the ends of their lives anyway) with ones using new technology they would generate only 10% of the amount of waste over their lifetimes that the last generation of nuclear power stations have (The Hot Topic, Walker and King).

Further, today I was reading about Scotland's energy policy in The Sunday Herald today. In order to get over the issue of the unpredictability of wind power the Scottish policy is to build twice the generating capacity that is needed to power Scotland, 50% renewable and 50% conventional so that when the wind doesn't blow and the reservoirs are low Scotland's electricity needs can be supplied by conventional means. If the conventional means were nuclear then great, Scotland would be generating carbon free electricity almost all the time. Unfortunately the current Scottish government is not going to build more nuclear stations but is planning to build coal fired stations with only the option of adding carbon capture technology at a later stage. In my view an opportunity missed by a government afraid to risk losing electoral support by doing the right thing.

The difficulties in reducing the world's CO2 emissions are not technological any more, they're political.

> (In reply to Dave Williams) Having worked on the construction of a large number of turbines I can honestly say you could have one down in a day and probably take a few weeks removing the access re seed and replant back to natural habitat...
>
> Now....
>
> Trysfinithin North wales and Sellafield are both credited with large scale production of pollutants and will have an evironmental legacy well past a few skips of hardcore and broken up reinforced concrete slabs.

Good luck with that - there's about 800t of concrete in a turbine foundation.
Also - I wish people would stop comparing wind with nuclear. Get a sense of proportion!

Well that's ok then we can afford to stop building renewable capacity as the dozens of nuclear power stations that are being constructed with such speed & efficiency are taking care of the problem
errr .... hang on.